The Secret Trails

Roberts, Charles G. D., Sir, 1860-1943Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.2
Word count
220K words
Chapters
22

Tags

English Originals Foreign Literature Ecological WritingNature ObservationWild SurvivalAdventure JourneyForest TrackingWilderness AdventureAnimal StoryHunting NarrativeCanadian WildernessAnimal Perspective

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.The Secret Trails by Sir Charles G. D. RobertsAuthor: Roberts, Charles G. D., Sir, 1860-1943,Language: English, Class: QL: Science: Zoology, Release Date: Nov 27, 2010

Editor's review

The Secret Trails is a collection of animal stories by the Canadian writer Charles G. D. Roberts, classified in the public-domain ebook catalogue under zoology-related categories. Roberts was known for observing nature and depicting wild animals, and this book continues his method of combining close natural observation with narrative tension, rendering the tracks, foraging, evasion, and struggle for survival of animals in the wilderness with a strong sense of immediacy. Its strength lies not in dramatic plotting but in the patient presentation of animal behavior and forest environments, through which readers can feel the immersive perspective characteristic of early nature writing. As an English-language ebook, its language is literary and its descriptions dense, so it rewards slow reading. In terms of reading situations, it suits readers who enjoy nature writing, animal narratives, or wilderness subjects, reading it piece by piece in a quiet setting; it also serves as a sample for understanding early twentieth-century Canadian nature writing. It should be noted that the book carries the observational perspective of the author's era, and today's readers would do well to approach it as both literature and historical document.

Who it's for

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Reading tips

  1. Read one piece at a time; before reading, guess from the title which animal and setting will appear, and afterward check the author's observational focus.
  2. Keep a sheet of paper to record the animals, environments, and key behaviors in each piece, forming your own nature-observation notes.
  3. Slow down at dense descriptions; read one passage aloud to feel the rhythm of the author's language as he creates a wilderness atmosphere.
  4. Read alongside modern nature writing to notice which descriptions belong to literary imagination and which come close to field observation.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22

FAQ

Is this book a novel or a collection of nature-observation essays? It is closer to narrative nature writing with animals as protagonists, containing both observational description of wild-animal behavior and forest environments and literarily organized plots. There is no need to classify it strictly as fiction or popular science; it is best read as nature literature.
Can I understand it without a background in zoology? Yes. The book does not rely on technical terminology to carry the reading; the emphasis is on narrative and scene description. Individual animal names or behavioral descriptions may need looking up, but this does not affect overall comprehension, and general readers can enter it simply out of interest.
Why is a historical perspective needed when reading it? The author wrote in the early twentieth century, and the book's ideas about nature, its manner of depicting animals, and its narrative tone all bear the marks of that era. Today's readers can appreciate its literary value while recognizing that it is not a conclusive work of contemporary animal behavior science.

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About the author

Roberts, Charles G. D., Sir, 1860-1943 Author

Sir Charles G. D. Roberts (1860–1943) was a Canadian writer known for his animal stories and nature writing. The library holds twenty-nine of his works, including The Kindred of the Wild: A Book of Animal Life, Red Fox, Hoof and Claw, Neighbors Unknown, The Heart of the Ancient Wood, and Kings in Exile. His writing focuses largely on wild animals and life in the wilderness, blending close observation of nature with narrative tension; the animals he portrays are both wild and individual in character, and such works have had a certain influence within the English-language tradition of animal literature. Beyond fiction, he also wrote poetry, as shown by Songs of the Common Day, and, Ave!: An Ode for the Shelley Centenary, indicating that his writing spans both prose and verse. Public information on the details of his life is limited, and none is conjectured here.